A closed system on a user's computer seeks to give the user the right benefit at the right time. Zero information on the user is transmitted. At any time, the user can turn the system on or off. When the system is on, it matches benefits to user activity within the context of the history of user activity. The user can view, edit or delete the encrypted and password-protected history. Benefits are presented to the user at appropriate times. User feedback is elicited. Selected benefits are enacted.
This invention relates generally to computer software, and in particular to understanding what a user does, protecting the user's privacy and matching benefits to the understanding of the user.
A user may find the computing experience frustrating or unproductive. Spam, or unsolicited email offers, clogs inboxes. Work is lost. A coupon code field remains blank for an online purchase. A user hits a figurative wall while trying to do something.
These issues of spam, lost work, obtaining a better value for purchases, receiving help on demand, and any other problem a user can experience on the user's computer, can be solved by computer software that understands the user. The software can learn all that a user does, know the user by the user's actions, and recognize when to provide benefits to the user. The software essentially becomes a skilled personal assistant for the user.
Clearly, a need for such a product exists. Productive, economic and emotional gains would accrue if a user could view only desired emails, retrieve work, realize the best possible value on all purchases, and receive needed help. Additional problems could be solved as well, such as but not limited to those encountered with editing digital pictures, communicating online, and obtaining tickets to local events of interest.
Multiple spam-blockers exist, such as Norton AntiSpam, Yahoo's email spam filters, and programs such as Axaware Spam Bully. These spam-blockers typically scan each email on an individual basis for origin and content, and attempt to filter out unsolicited offers. Spammers readily circumvent these efforts. Overzealous email spam filters cause “false positives,” where wanted emails are identified as spam. Desired email is blocked. Undesired email is delivered. Axaware's Spam Bully goes beyond standard filtering and scans the user's existing inbox messages to obtain a general idea of email that belongs. However, this is similar to the proverbial missing the forest for the tree, where all user activity is the forest, and email is the tree. All user activity provides a better context to see if an email belongs.
Program features such as AutoSave in Microsoft Word attempt to address the problem of lost work. However, if a user has created a document in Word, accidentally deletes text, and then saves the document with the text deleted, the user has no way of recovering that deleted text. It is gone, and must be reproduced. Microsoft Internet Explorer's browser cache may store web pages, but if a user fills out a web form and refreshes the screen, the information entered on the form is lost, and needs to be retyped.
Providing the user with better value for an online purchase is an area of great promise and focus by many products including Google's search engine and AdWords. Based on the search keywords entered by the user on Google's home page, Google will present search results and advertising most likely to correspond to what the user wants to find. However, this advertising may be out of context. Or, the user may simply want to ascertain information, and view the advertising accompanying the search results as intrusive. Furthermore, the user has no way to determine what information has been gathered about them by Google in the process of this search, and no way to control how that information is utilized.
Much effort has been allocated towards on-demand help in products such as Microsoft Word, where a user can receive help relevant to the context the program perceives. However, certain attempts by Microsoft Word to offer help can be maddening to users, such as auto-correcting text as text is typed.
An auto-correct feature in Microsoft Word capitalizes the first letter of each sentence. If a company name such as eBay is the first word of the sentence, the first letter is in lower case on purpose. The user wants the letter in lower case, and the user types the letter in lower case, but it is changed, right before the user's eyes, to upper case. The user can try searching for help on how to turn off this feature, but the user may not know that the feature is called AutoCorrect or how to disable it, and may experience increasing levels of frustration.
Computer programs exist to face the issues of spam, lost work, best received purchase value, and on-demand computer help. However, none of these programs operate within the context of a user's entire activity history. Computer users therefore continue to suffer reduced productivity, frustrating outcomes and lost time.